


Never First

by infinite_regress



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossing Timelines, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, Reunions, whouffaldi first kiss challege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_regress/pseuds/infinite_regress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara and the Doctor meet out of order, once accidentally, once deliberately. The meetings allow them to be a bit more honest with each other, and change the nature of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An unexpected gift

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at fiction, I don't have a beta. I have never uploaded anything before either so learning as I go about formatting. Have procrastinated long enough, just like these characters, so I am going to take a deep breath, and get on with it!

**An unexpected gift**

Clara sat alone in her flat, staring absently at a TV programme she wasn’t following, glancing occasionally toward the window and an outside world she barely cared about. Nothing seemed right anymore; no Danny, no Doctor, a hollow place where her heart used to be. She sighed and asked herself for the hundredth time why she had done it. Danny’s noble sacrifice had hung over her, his selfless determination to do the _right thing_ gave her a sanctimonious prod and sent her lurching into the silliest lie of them all: ‘yes Doctor, I’m fine, I’ve got my boyfriend back from the dead, you go off and fix Gallifrey.’  

She was angry with Danny for sending the boy back in his place, but she was furious with herself for letting the one thing that could have eased that loss slip away. She closed her eyes. Who was she kidding? He’d found Gallifrey and frankly, he had seemed pretty stoked about the whole thing.

Maybe he was even glad to be free of the strange compulsion that had kept them dancing around each other. They’d fought and fussed after his regeneration as much as they’d flirted before it. At first, a floppy bow tie, and a whirlwind of adventures had literally swept her off her feet. But deep down she had understood that it was the mountain range flirting. Vastra had been right. That was why Clara had been able to see almost instantly that the cyber-controller was in charge, not the Doctor, when he started to whisper in her ear. Her head had never been turned toward the bow-tie Doctor, not really. But with the newly regenerated Doctor, nothing had been easy, nothing was straight forward, everything was intense. She’d hated him and loved him more than she thought possible. And it had burned.

Her breath caught in her throat and she felt familiar hot tears spill: almost as quickly she squeezed them back. No more, she promised herself. What’s done is done, the choices made. She’d drive herself crazy if she carried on like this.

‘Deep breath Oswald’ she said to the empty room. ‘You have a job, family, and extraordinary memories of things most people can only dream about.  The future’s waiting, if you get off your arse’. She set her jaw determinedly and nodded to herself, letting her breath out slowly.

Then, as if the universe were mocking her, it started. That far away groaning, the whistling air sending her hair blowing about her face, the shimmering space where nothing had been a moment before, and then, there it was, the magic blue box.   

Still red eyed, rooted to the spot, she gaped at the door of the Tardis. ‘Timing…’ she muttered, before the doors flew open and the Doctor, in a velvet purple overcoat she had never seen before, his silver hair less severe, slightly more unruly, swept into her small living room without missing a beat.

‘Clara!’ Before she could speak he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her, then grabbed her hand and in one motion twirled to plant himself on the sofa and pull her along with him, all the time still talking and grinning. ‘I’ve got a gift for you. I’ve just been to Hydraxi Prime and I found something really interesting…’ he began reaching into his pocket, but it was at that point he noticed that she was still rooted to the spot, their hands joined awkwardly in the air. He blinked at her in surprise.

‘Clara, what’s wrong? Have I done something?’ he asked uncertainly, then ‘Doctor idiot!’ He slapped his forehead with an affected flourish, ‘I thought I was getting much better at not making you do that’ he punctuated his words with a circular hand motion in her direction ‘with your face…you haven’t done that for ages…’ he was gabbling now and he probably knew it, but he blundered on anyway, ‘certainly not since the sex, and…’ he  looked around the room ‘how did you get your old sofa back…?’

A moment of bewilderment transformed quickly into wide-eyed realisation. ‘Oh’. He said simply, letting her hand drop, before briefly rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. ‘I should probably go’ he said weakly. 

Clara raised her hand in a ‘stop right there’ gesture, daring him to even think about moving.

‘Woah! Back right up!’                                                                                                         

‘One, what the hell was that?’ she waved her hand furiously between the two of them, momentarily lost for words.

‘Two, sex?!’ then frowning slightly,

‘Three, what the hell happens to my sofa?’

The Doctor sighed with the air of a man who knows he is in deep trouble, and from behind his hands mutters, ‘Is this multiple choice? Can I pick one?’

‘No!’ Clara fairly exploded, but the Doctor continued ‘because I’m favouring question three quite strongly…’   

At last he took the time to look at her properly, and saw her sharp intake of breath and her already reddened eyes brim with tears. It was almost too much to bear. ‘Oh Clara I’m sorry’. He gathered her carefully into his arms for a moment, and then stepped back from her space and held her lightly at arms-length, ‘I’m sorry’ he said again.

She sniffed and bent her forehead into his chest for an instant, and stifled a sob.

‘Do you need to slap me?’ he asked. ‘Maybe’ she sniffed

‘I’ve missed you, very much’. She managed stiffly. There was plenty she wanted to say. Maybe it was time for honesty, to stop saying things like ‘thank you for making me feel special’ and tell him how she really felt. Maybe. Maybe not. In the end she managed, with the faintest trace of a smile ‘I bet it’s hell of a story about the sofa’.

***

He sits on one end of the sofa, and she perches alongside, not too close, but not at the far end either, balancing her half drained tea cup on her knee. He’s already seen her calendar, he knows it’s December 23rd 2014, and he’s been running their lives backwards in his head. ‘So Danny’s _not_ back and you haven’t seen me for months, your nan’s been a pillar of support, and you’re reading a lot because it’s better than thinking’.

‘How do you...’ she didn’t finish the sentence because it was obvious. She told him, or will tell him. The elephant’s still in the room however, and Clara is almost as afraid to broach it as he is, with his eyes that seem hungry for her and respectfully distant in turns. ‘So when did you last see me?’ ‘Yesterday’ he replies, and in her world that makes perfect sense.

‘And our relationship…evolves?’ she says tentatively. He nods silently. ‘How did that even happen?’ There’s a note of incredulity in her voice, and he tenses a little, ‘how do these things ever happen? He says a bit defensively. She instantly regretted her sharpness, because in truth she had thought about it, more than once. ‘When?’ ‘Soon. Quite soon’.

She swallowed, and put her cup on the coffee table, frowning slightly. ‘So, does this mean it’s inevitable then? One of those fixed points in time…you’ve said it, so it has to happen that way?’ she didn’t quite like the thought, and clearly nor did he as he let out an indignant yelp

‘What? No! No, Clara, of course not. There _are_ fixed points in time,  I’ve bumped up against a few,  but our relationship isn’t one of them. You have a choice. Always, you have a choice’.

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair and said quietly, ‘It’s you, Clara. I would never kiss you first.’ She was a little amused by that, and smiled. He continued,  ‘You told me, remember? “I smile first, then you know it’s safe to smile”. I took that as a standing order for our relationship. You go first, then I know it’s safe’. Clara remembered the conversation in Mancini’s Restaurant in Victorian London, but was not quite sure whether to believe him or not.

‘You’d never kiss me first?’

‘Absolutely not! He asserted, with exaggerated indignation she thought, considering what he blurted out a few minutes ago.  But there was sincerity there, as he adds ’I never thought I had any right to hope for more than friendship between us. I thought staying with Danny would make you happy, so I left’.

‘And I let you, more fool me’ Clara thought, but couldn’t quite find the right words.

‘If you step back into the Tardis’ he frowned, this was complex even for a seasoned time-traveller. ‘If you had stepped back into the Tardis and never wanted more than friendship I would have been glad enough of that, it wouldn’t have made a difference’.

‘Things are not pre-determined’ he continued. ‘If you want, we can carry on dancing around each other. He won’t…’ That was the trouble with crossing your own time-line, it made you start talking about yourself in the third person ‘be the one to start anything. Honestly, it felt like a gift…the rest of it’ that shyness was back, and she poked at it deliberately.

‘You mean the sex?’  ‘I was going to say romance’ then he grinned slyly and added ‘but the sex has been pretty amazing’. She had no idea how to respond to that.

‘Gallifrey!’ she exclaimed, her voice a bit too high, eyes a bit too wide. ‘I haven’t even asked you! How was Gallifrey?’ his expression darkened a shade, but he just said ‘spoilers’. Clara scoffed. ‘Seriously? You tell me that our relationship’ she searched for a metaphor ‘goes from a PG to an 18, and you slap ‘spoilers’ on your visit home?’ He just stared. ‘Fine! I guess I’ll get to ask you soon enough’.

Later, after they had eaten, the washing up sat accusingly on the counter, Clara wondered if he would leave or stay. She filled the silence with the first thing she could think of, in an effort to stave off the moment when she would find out.

‘Are you going to tell me what happens to the sofa?’ she laughed, but it sounded forced, even to her. ‘Well the triplets had a really nasty tummy bug…’ She choked, and he grinned. So this was how their relationship would be, him comfortable with joking about them having children together?

‘No, no, it was space debris jammed in the outer shell of the Tardis, the remains of a divergence cannon actually. Exploded as we landed…’ he gestured in the direction of the sofa. ‘It didn’t end well for your sofa’. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed by the nature of the prophesied doom of her furniture.

‘Well thank goodness for that…I think…’

***

Her eyes rested on his jacket, hung over the back of a chair, and she wondered what he had been so fired up about giving her when he first arrived. There were many intriguing aspects to their future relationship, she realised. He had never given her gifts before. She guessed she might have a long wait to find out what it was though. Before the silence could take hold and the ‘leave or stay’ conundrum surface she took a punt anyway. ‘What were you going to show me, when you came in?’

‘Well it won’t make sense right now, we’ve not yet been to…’ She sighs, yeah, a long wait. But she is Clara, while he is procrastinating with a final cup of tea, she reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small opal gemstone that swirled restless blues and browns, set in an impossibly ancient golden necklace. It hummed, it was alien, unquestionably powerful, and remarkably beautiful.  Spoilers indeed! She returned it hastily, and smiled again. ‘I do see wonders’ she said to herself.

For a moment she thought he had seen her with the necklace, he studied her face so intently. No she decided, it wasn’t that, but he seemed somehow conflicted. Though he _shouldn’t_ because whatever happens soon between them was in the past for him. Maybe that was the problem? Some infinite loop he was starting to talk himself out of? But no, not that either, because his eyes captured hers and she felt the world slipping away.

She closed distance between them, almost mesmerised by the possibilities before her. She grasped his hand, then said softly, hesitantly, ‘are we still at you never kissing me first?’ He smiled his quirky smile, stooped a little, drew her a little closer. ‘Well you see, that isn’t a problem’ he continued. ‘I’ve kissed you lots of times’.  He pulled her closer still and kissed her deeply.

As she watched him step inside the Tardis, her head span with the new reality that she had stumbled into. There was running off with a madman in a box, and _running off_ with a madman in a box.

‘I have a choice’ she reminded herself, ‘nothing’s set’ but of course the Doctor knows differently. Despite what he said about choice and free will, he shoots her one last look that smoulders with ‘it will be amazing’ and adds firmly ‘don’t let him push you away. Remember you’ll still be dealing with Doctor Idiot’, and he was gone.


	2. Dealing with Doctor Idiot

Christmas morning, 2014.  ‘all of time and space in a magic blue box…don’t even argue…’

‘Second chances’  Clara murmured as she followed the Doctor into the Tardis. She steeled her nerves, and said firmly ‘Doctor, you know what else this is?’ She saw she had his attention, and continued ‘It’s a gift. I just saw my whole life played out in front of me without you in it, and that’s not a life I ever want.’

She looked at the man across the console room and suddenly wondered how she ever doubted what she wanted. But even with the certainty of what she now knew, her heart still raced with familiar nerves as she moved closer to him. Tentatively she reached for his hand, remembering his touch, the intoxicating sensation of his mouth on hers, how it had felt right. Like home.

‘Impossible man’ she said as she reached up and put her hand on the cheek she had kissed moments before. After a beat she pressed her lips to his, and felt him startle and pull away ‘Clara, I think you’re malfunctioning’ he babbled, reaching inside his jacket for his sonic screwdriver, no doubt ready to scan for alien influences or mind control.

‘Really not malfunctioning’ she quipped, ‘in fact I think this is the first thing I’ve got right in a while’. ‘I don’t…’ he began, scrambling backwards as if something unexpected and frightening had just happened, which, Clara supposed charitably, it had. She chewed her bottom lip and grasped at his lapel, but he side-stepped neatly and disappeared further around the console. 

‘I  think, you think, you have no right to expect us to be anything more than friends. But you’re wrong, we can be so much more than that’. His eyes widened in response.

‘Well that’s a very interesting thought Clara, but I have quite a long list of reasons why it’s not a good idea’.

‘So you have thought about it then?’ 

‘Can we just not talk about this?’

‘No! We can not not talk about it! We have spent enough time not talking about it!’

His expression was pained and confused all at once, he was speaking a bit too quickly as he said ‘Clara, I’m not _him_ ’ she knows he means bow-tie Doctor ‘and I haven’t…I mean, regeneration…’ Clara could see him searching for a way to explain the inexplicable. ‘It’s having the core of me, my basic operating system, projected into a whole new biological entity. Some things stay with me, the things that define me, my moral code if you like, that doesn’t change. I will always regenerate into another version of the Doctor. Missy, well she will always regenerate into a being with her core values’.  Or lack of them, Clara thought, but kept it to herself.

‘But as much as somethings are the same, others things are new and untested and untried.’

‘So you’re saying the software is same but the hardware is new?’ He shrugged a strange circular nod, that seemed to say ‘not really, but if that helps you understand’.

‘There’s a first time for every biological experience, and I haven’t…’ he sighed. She could almost feel the discomfort radiating from him, ‘you haven’t road tested the hardware?’ she prompted kindly.

‘It could be a big embarrassing failure, have you thought of that?’ he said abruptly. His insecurity was as unexpected as it was endearing, and she reached out gently to him. ‘Do you think I care about you so little that it would make a difference?’ He began to relax a little, and that felt like progress.

‘You said “come away with me in my magic box”, and I followed you across the universe.  You grab my hand, and say ‘run’, and we run like hell, we always seem to have to. But in this, Doctor, let me lead you. Let me go first…’ The faintest smile formed at the corner of his lips. Without losing a moment, she kissed him, and after the briefest of hesitations, he pulled her into a gentle embrace and kissed her back. Five foot one and seen the future. He never stood a chance.

 

***

Much, much later…

‘Do you remember when we spent all that time on Kastellel 3, searching for the gem stone that according to legend was supposed to restore the matrix for their planetary climate control system and unite the warring tribes?’

She looks up from her book. ‘We had to make do with a marble, some soldering wire and a stiff talking to as I remember’. ‘Well I’ve just been to that market on Hydraxi Prime…’

‘The space-market’

‘Clara, we’ve talked about this-no one puts ‘space’ in front of ordinary nouns. Anyway, I found this.’ He held up the necklace in front of her.

It was as stunning as she remembered, its colours darting in the depth of the gem, then swirling to the edges before fading and reforming. ‘A gift?’ She thinks it’s beautiful, in more ways than one, and can’t stop smiling. I’ve waited a long time for that, she thought. ‘I know exactly where you’ve just been!’ she declares.

He clasped the necklace around her neck and flattened her hair ‘I thought it was uncanny how you said exactly the right thing. Well that bit of the puzzle just fell into place. That’s cheating really!’

She shrugged ‘but I do it with infinite style’. ‘Anything else you’re holding back?’ He asked. She bought his silence with a kiss ‘now that would be telling’.

 


	3. Windows and Mirrors

‘You’re looking for him again’. It was less an accusation than a statement Clara felt, but there was a tone, a definite tone however mild, of disapproval. ‘Ashildr’ she muttered a little sharply. The other woman simply raised her eyebrows and continued on her way through the metal and white console room. Anyway, Ashildr was wrong. She wasn’t _looking_ for him. She’d _found_ him. 

There were windows, she reasoned. Spaces between the threads in the web of time where he would be her Doctor, but before the Raven, and if she found them, maybe she could slip into them without ever meeting herself.  They had not been together every moment, she had still taught at Cole Hill School. Admittedly she had drawn envious glances from colleagues, who wondered at her detailed lesson plans and inspired project ideas. ‘How ever do you find the time?’ she would just shrug, feeling slightly guilty.  It wasn’t so hard to do good work when you could take a week overnight. 

She once dodged OFSTED for the best part of a year, then wowed them with the most spectacular lesson, although it was harder to explain why her hair was 5 inches longer than the previous day. ‘Yes, well that is actually easy to explain’ she’d dissembled, ‘clearly these are hair extensions. Very convincing hair extensions’. She could have sworn Courtney Woods mumbled ‘right…not like you cleared off with the Doctor for a few months?’ barely under her breath. Clara had flushed and Courtney grinned.

Sometimes, she remembered, she had spent as much as whole week at a time going from Monday to Friday with no adventures in between. Those were the windows she scanned for; she developed a flow-chart, and then carefully plotted every point between 25th December 2014 and The Raven that was _sans_ -Clara. 

At first the search was enough, and she revelled in her _intact_ memories as she searched and plotted, and only felt just a bit like a stalker when Ashildr spotted her handiwork and rolled her eyes. But once that chart was full she was drawn irresistibly to ‘Window 1’. It was January 2015, he had dropped her back home and then spun across the galaxy to a distant planet. Clara hid her Tardis on a deserted street, pulled an un-Clara-like hoodie over her head, and watched him from distance as he wandered around the city streets. He looked relaxed and happy, a bit too happy, and then  remembering _that_ January she realised he had every reason to smile. She smiled too, but sadly. She thought seeing him again would make her happier, but it just hurt more.

***

She waited a long time before  going to Window 2. She and Ashildr did some amazing things, but always the next slot called to her. The Doctor and Clara Oswald Upsetting the Locals. Clara remembered spending at least 24 hours locked up in a small dusty room while the Doctor pummelled his way through the local lowlifes and detritus to find her. She had intended to watch, not to let him see her, but it happened anyway, and if she was honest she probably let it.

‘Clara! How did you get out? I was just…’

‘Not really out as such. Still in need of rescuing, but there’s no hurry, it’s just boring in there, not dangerous’. He made a confused face, and stared at her hard, because this really pushed the envelope. He could see how he could pitch up out of order blundering across his own timeline. But how could she? ‘Explain’ he said a shade darkly, and Clara’s heart sank a little. This was a monumentally bad idea. They walked in silence for a few moments.

‘I can’t Doctor. I’m sorry but I really can’t explain. I just needed to see you. She can’t know’. There it was, talking about yourself in the third person, a sign that things were not going well. ‘I should probably go’.

‘Whatever it is, we’ll fix it’. His blasé  note of confidence bit her, because over-confidence, she knew, had got her where she was now. ‘You tried, Doctor, believe me you tried so hard for such a long time’. Four and a half billion years she remembered silently. The age of the Earth. ‘This is right. I accept it. But… I found a bit of wiggle-room. I suppose I’m cheating’. She looked so sad that he reached for her hand, but she slipped back, afraid he would know too much if he touched her. ‘Oh Clara, it’s ok to cheat, sometimes, I think.’

They drew closer to the senate building, and Clara remembered with a pang how he swept into that dusty room like an avenging god, and they held hands and ran laughing all the way back to the Tardis. Could you feel jealous of yourself? ‘Will you come and see me again?’ he asked and she blinked back tears. ‘Don’t think I should.’ He looked at her face and drank in the sadness there ‘I won’t ask, whatever it is, I won’t ask you and I won’t tell her, just…come again’.

 

***

 

‘Are you going again?’ Ashildr asked, more amused than disapproving, since the universe had not imploded last time. Clara grinned, and looked sideways at her immortal friend. Life, or life between a heartbeat and the last, was really not so bad once you got the hang of it. She had Ashildr, the most amazing transport in the universe, plenty of wiggle room, and she was starting to think she could pepper that eternity with stolen moments with _him_.

At Window 3, of course she knew where he had just been, and made sure he noticed her straight away, by leaning conspicuously against the mirrored window of a tattoo parlour in Edinburgh.

‘So, Kastellel 3, that was an ingenious solution’ she quipped. He flashed a sad smile that pained her because he didn’t need to feel sad, not in this moment, and nor she realised, did she. These times were special, a gift from a universe that maybe sometimes cared, just a little. She grabbed his hand and put her other hand to his lapel before pulling him closer.

‘You know what this is, don’t you?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for him to answer ‘it’s a gift, wrapped in a mystery, delivered by a magic box. It’s too precious to waste feeling sad.’ She pulled closer still, feeling sure he would notice the absence of her heartbeat as he slipped his arms around her waist, and hoping he would remember his promise not to ask.

‘I’m happy to see you’ she whispered. ‘I’m happy to see you too’ he mirrored, and she smiled again because that was so like him. He was still Doctor Idiot, wouldn’t change their relationship unless she gave him permission by going first. She remembered the first time, back in their shared timeline, that he said he loved her.  She had been bowled over by him saying it first. Come to think about it, it was right after their visit to Kastellel 3. 

‘People like us’ she began,  ‘we should say things to each other, while we can.’

She stole another kiss, and he kissed her right back, then asked ‘what things, Clara Oswald?’

‘Things that matter, important things. Things like “I love you Doctor”. That meant, of course that back in their shared timeline, he _wouldn’t_ be saying it first.  She supposed, if she was honest, it _was_ cheating. But she was doing it with infinite style. 


End file.
